


The Scars of Bellmeade

by Ayabelle (lea_hazel)



Category: Collar of the Damned, Original Work
Genre: Allegory, Gen, Geography, Meta, Nonfiction, Short, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/Ayabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the GBP square 'scars'. On how Bellmeade survived the Bloody Duke's reign and ensuing war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scars of Bellmeade

I first wrote this as a locked post in my journal so it wasn't meant to be orderly or systematic or anything, but Malice told me I should go ahead and make it public so I cleaned it up a bit and here it is. I warn you not to hold this piece to my usual standards for meta.

So, let's talk about Bellmeade. Specifically, let's talk about the journey of transmutations that Bellmeade goes through throughout the trilogy, and its use as a blatant allegory for the war itself and the Bloody Duke's entire reign. It starts out as a flourishing region of fertile farmland where the grazing is rich and the hills are golden with sola blossoms. By the time he's done with it, it's become known mainly as a killing ground, and ballads are written about its fields of ash.

Canon hints and eventually outright states that the meades are the heartland of the Viviantine protectorate.1 More than the city of Brighthaven itself, more than any other region south of the River of Clouds, the meades not only feed the kingdom but define it. In Idols, part of Jaylen's conceptual claim to the throne lies in his familiarity with Greatmeade and the rural areas far outside the city where he lived. Greer's status as an ex-soldier and specifically a veteran of the Bell Cavalry is what establishes him as an average everyman.2

The destruction of the meades under Vivianti's tyranny is also the destruction of everything that our heroes, and by proxy we as readers, hold dear. It serves not only as proof of his reign of terror before the detached elites of Greatfording and Tormel, but also _casus belli_ both for them and for the Cloudling kingdom. It's no coincidence that the meades are the crux of both centaur uprisings, and that Bellmeade itself serves as the site for the execution of its ringleaders.

Noriel says is explicitly near the end of _Ashes_ :3 'This is the heart of the land, and it is dying'. The Bright Army comes to save Bellmeade, but in the process they find themselves obliged to push it further down the path of destruction. Every battle they fight leaves hundreds dead. The young men they recruit for their righteous mission have a one in three chance of never returning home. Produce and other raw materials go towards supplying and feeding the soldiers. And in the aftermath of a lost battle, the fields that fed them are burned and salted.

The people of Bellmeade have just as much reason to resent the Bright Army and its commanders as they did to hate the Bloody Duke before. Twenty years of war have left the meades gutted, villages emptied, fields lying fallow with no one left to cultivate them. Before the Bloody Duke's coup, the common symbol of Bellmeade was the yellow sola flower. The architects of the Malian peace treaties inherited a land divested of life, typified by the featureless monolith that marks the site of that first, calamitous battle.

1 As to why I'm not referring to it as Obelanth, as dear Duke Eryth does, that's an essay in and of itself.

2 Despite the fact that he's not human and thus far from ideal for the role, see Hamadryad's lightning round entry on last year's Meta Wars.

3 Even the book's title serves to focus our attention on the symbolism it provides.

 


End file.
